Written by

Todd Richmond

Associated Press

MADISON — Republicans on the Legislature’s budget committee approved a plan Wednesday that would dramatically scale back the state Department of Natural Resources’ land stewardship program, arguing the program’s debt has ballooned and the state has enough land.

Under current state law, the DNR can borrow up to $60 million a year to acquire and develop land. Gov. Scott Walker’s executive budget retained that authority, but his fellow Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee limited it to $47.5 million in the first year of the budget and $54.5 million in the second. Borrowing would be capped at $50 million each year after that through mid-2020. The changes could save the state up to $98 million in debt service by then, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

The plan also would cap how much land the DNR can own directly and require the agency to sell off thousands of acres.

“We’re making sure this program doesn’t get further out of control,” Sen. Joe Leibham, R-Sheboygan, said. “I’m realistic and honest that we’ve got to have a program that’s balanced between fiscal and environmental stewardship.”

Committee Democrats accused Republicans of crippling the program. They complained the last state budget slashed borrowing authority too.

The DNR’s stewardship program is the agency’s main method for buying land for conservation. The program, implemented in 1989, authorizes the DNR to borrow money for land purchases, boat landing repair, property development and grants to conservancy organizations.

The fiscal bureau estimates 1.5 million acres are currently in stewardship. But with all that land has come soaring debt payments. The bureau estimates the state will have to pay $91 million in debt service for stewardship purchases in 2013-14 and $94.5 million in 2014-15. That translates to about $1.8 million a week, according to the bureau.

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Republicans have long questioned the program. They’re philosophically opposed to the government purchasing land and denying private parties a chance at it. They also contend people can’t access the land to hunt or fish and have cringed at the mounting debt and payments the state must make to local governments in lieu of lost property taxes.

The Republican-controlled Legislature reduced stewardship bonding from $86 million to $60 million in the 2011-13 budget as lawmakers faced a $3.6 billion deficit.

Walker’s new executive budget retained the $60 million cap but scaled back specific borrowing for land acquisition by $21 million. Republicans on the budget committee began sending signals as early as March they planned to pare the program back further. But it was unclear how far they would go.

In addition to scaling back the borrowing authority, their plan would cap the amount of stewardship land the DNR could own directly at 1.9 million acres, prohibit the DNR from purchasing any land outside existing project boundaries and require the agency to sell at least 10,000 acres by mid-2017 and at least 250 acres of potential farmland annually through mid-2020. Proceeds would go toward debt on the property.

“Let’s be straight here. People just want us to do away with this program. We’re really doing our best to maintain it,” the committee’s co-chair, Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, said. “The reality is our debt service is getting to the point where we have to ask, when is enough enough? My friends on the other side of the aisle would say, never is enough enough.”

Rep. Bob Wirch, D-Pleasant Prairie, called the GOP’s plan “shameful.” He said it would anger outdoor enthusiasts who already can’t find space to recreate.

“There’s no place to hunt and fish, and what are you doing? Selling off land,” he said. “That just doesn’t make any sense.”

“It is frustrating to see the program whittled away,” she said. “It’s always been the heart of bipartisanship.”

The committee on Wednesday also approved cutting wolf hunting license fees in half, from $100 to $49 for state residents and from $500 to $251 for nonresidents, and upheld a provision in Walker’s executive budget to ban hunting wolves at night.

The committee is expected to spend the rest of the month revising Walker’s spending plan.